You know, I appear to have started a trend towards nominating European top tens, which I note neither of you have yet partaken in. Consider yourselves nudged.
Also by land area, Cologne is a bit smaller than some of the zoos that I generally consider to be quite small, such as Edinburgh and Belfast. It’s not a Berlin, a Chester or a Burgers, but I still loved it.
"Shabby British wildlife park" was aimed at the area furthest from the entrance, with paddocks for bison, camels, etc. Whilst the lower part is pretty enough, there's a lot throughout where "adequate" would be a definite improvement. I found my sole visit genuinely upsetting, which makes Wilhelma unique among major zoos. Having said that, I realise there's a lot at the Berlins, say, which is not very good either. Sentimentality compels both into my top 10, so I can understand Tim May's position.
Upsetting because it wasn’t very good? Or because some of the animal accommodation is so sub-standard? I can understand @Tim May ’s love of the botanical elements, and the wonderful historical buildings (most of which would be improved by the addition of more animals). But I share the disappointment of others, especially @Giant Panda. I love a bit of 1960s brutalism,but too many houses here are inadequate as a consequence of their bold architectural vision, and much of the place is shabby - the giraffe house wouldn’t be out of place in a minor, provincial uk zoo. Nice aquarium and reptile house though, and that set of aviaries between the entrance and the restaurant is very good. The new ape house is well done, I think.
Actually I think it is a Chester for what it's worth. I think Chester is better, but Chester makes my top three, whereas Koln is left just outside. I certainly would expect there to be many who'd reverse the position. And a personal top ten will be forthcoming, although there are too many of the zoos mentioned so far that I haven't visited for it to be truly comparative.
I had this when visiting Plzen, which would not even come close to my top-25 and I am somewhat surprised how much many zoochatters love it. I have a soft spot for Wilhelma though... And if we are at it anyway, my top 10 would look something like this: 1. Tiergarten Schoenbrunn 2. Zoo Zurich 3. Burgers Zoo 4. Zoo Praha 5. Zoo Cologne 6. Apenheul 7. Tiergarten Nurnberg 8. Pairi Daiza (though every new development makes it less attractive) 9. Wilhelma 10. Tierpark Berlin Some of the near misses would include Diergaarde Blijdorp, Walsrode, Zoo Berlin, Leipzig, Paris Menagerie/Jardin des Plantes & Munich. I have not yet been to Chester, Doue, Beauval, Wroclaw, Hamburg, Zlin and Budapest...
I meant that more in the way that it is generally spoken about, and the recognition it tends to get. You often hear ‘Chester/Berlin/Burgers is the best zoo in the world!’ but never (at least in my experience) the same about Cologne.
Ah, but before this thread, you didn't often hear that Chester was the best zoo in the world. The party line has always been that it's excellent, for a UK zoo, but that it doesn't stand up to the best the continent has to offer.
European Top Ten Prague Chester Berlin Zoo Zurich Cologne Plzen Frankfurt Tierpark Copenhagen Basel I'm quite sure about my top three, although the order is less firm. Berlin obviously has the collection, Chester the best enclosures (both in terms of stand-outs and as an average), and Prague sits somewhere in the middle. Zurich has the some of the best zoo components in the world, but needs to finish 'modernising'. Plzen suffers from some 'below average' exhibits, as well as something intangible first summed up by Giant Panda a while ago: a lack of focus on ABCs? So hard to put a finger on it. The Tierpark really may be too big, as CGSwans suggested, and can feel a little like only a few volumes of an Animal Encyclopedia. Copenhagen is lifted above a whole slew of decent zoos by the Arctic Ring. I've tried to avoid the hypocracy, as I view it, of allowing mammal-heavy zoos whilst eliminating Walsrode etc. A true heavy-hitter has a well-rounded collection. I concede that some of the above may suffer a little aquatically. I'd also like to throw a bone to two collections that don't stand a chance of making these lists, but are outstanding for their size: Odense and Bern.
This is perhaps the most surprising outcome from your (CGSwans') ranking to me: it follows that your top three zoos worldwide are all European.
I guess that all depends on what circles you move in. I only joined ZooChat just over a month ago, and therefore what I have heard has not come from this forum. So before this forum, it was pretty much all I ever heard!
These two assessments I feel many share, and each on its own seems reasonable to me. But there is an intriguing double-standard in their combination that always gets me: if the ape house is a skeleton in Zurich's closet, then imo Berlin is an entire skeleton closet with enclosures in entire sections not only small and lacking in natural features, but also largely deprived of adequate enrichment.
I agree with you, but zoochatters in particular are prone to rating zoos more highly if they can see loads of species (and rarities in particular).
I see how you infer that, but I'm hesitant to agree. My visits to San Diego and Chester aren't comparable: when I went to San Diego I'd been to only about ten other sizeable, conventional zoos. When I say it was 'revelatory' that was partly because it was where I saw my first okapi, hummingbirds, pangolin and bonobos (and I could rattle off a different list for Singapore). By contrast, by the time I made it to Chester I had about 65 roughly comparable zoos to contrast it with. So the two visits are simply different experiences, and I won't feel fully confident splitting them until I get back to SD a second time. There's also trouble comparing Bronx with Europe, too. My visit there was rushed, a bit stressed and slightly disappointing because my imagination of what Bronx would be was out of kilter with what Bronx *could* be. I feel reasonably confident that if Bronx were in Germany it would be at least in a discussion of the top three in Europe, but I'm reluctant to try to estimate precisely where. At the same time, I don't want to disavow the prospect that those first three European collections *would* be my global top three, either. Only that I'm not super confident making the call. Zurich's ape house is by far not the worst ape house I saw in Europe, but it's a long way from the best in a zoo that otherwise has consistently elite exhibits. It gets criticism out of proportion to its objective standard because its relative standard (compared with the rest of Zurich) is so poor. There aren't all that many zoos I've placed below Berlin that I consider to have a higher mean standard of enclosure than Berlin. Rotterdam, Nuremberg and maybe Leipzig, but each zoo also has weaknesses among other factors I take into consideration. Nor are they are miles ahead, whereas I'd contend that Chester, Burgers and (ape house aside) Zurich are. That's why i never had any difficulty settling on my top three, and wrestled a fair bit below that. And that's fair enough. Welcome to the world's nerdiest parlour game. I see where you're coming from, but I think there's an important difference. Nuremberg - about as mammal-centric a zoo as I've visited - still markets itself and is popularly perceived as a 'zoo' in the conventional, ABC animals sense. We notice that it has an unbalanced collection, but I doubt many other visitors do. Walsrode - and Apenheul and Oceanografic - have a consciously specific focus. So Nuremberg makes my cut whereas others don't, but its weakness outside mammals is relevant and counts against it.
I do really enjoy hearing about other people’s perceptions, what impresses and what disappoints. It’s so interesting to compare the similarities and differences. I am learning a lot!
Yes, ofc. Funny thing is this: to me, Zurich's greatest weakness in comparison to other top zoos is, indeed, its rather limited collection (now and also into the future) - hardly any local wildlife; virtually no small to mid-sized carnivores and hardly any small to mid-sized species in general outside masoala and the exotarium; small vivarium/exotarium, with no large crocodilian, and hardly any (terrestrial) invertebrates; hardly any (semi)aquatic species, no hippo; etc. Of course, this 'weakness' is at least partially also a side-product of Zurich's strength. I suspected as much I haven't visited that many European zoos, but of those I've visited, Berlin imo has one of the lowest mean standards of enclosures. I would place Vienna, Basel, Prague, Skansen, Edinburgh, virtually every local 'Tierpark' I've ever seen, and perhaps even Wilhelma ahead of Berlin in this aspect. I see Berlin as more akin to Beijing zoo or Ueno zoo. I would rate it as clearly superior to both those zoos, but it shares with them a feel as a 'cold-war' zoo, somehow caught in a time vortex, but most importantly, seemingly completely oblivious to the last thirty years of development.
[QUOTE="antonmuster, post: 1058622, member: 9835] I haven't visited that many European zoos, but of those I've visited, Berlin imo has one of the lowest mean standards of enclosures. I would place Vienna, Basel, Prague, Skansen, Edinburgh, virtually every local 'Tierpark' I've ever seen, and perhaps even Wilhelma ahead of Berlin in this aspect. I see Berlin as more akin to Beijing zoo or Ueno zoo. I would rate it as clearly superior to both those zoos, but it shares with them a feel as a 'cold-war' zoo, somehow caught in a time vortex, but most importantly, seemingly completely oblivious to the last thirty years of development.[/QUOTE] Shrugs, I simply cannot agree with that. I've been to Ueno and I've been to Berlin, and whilst Berlin has its faults and Ueno has its strengths they are nowhere near the same quality.
...I probably am being too harsh. And I didn't intend to imply that Berlin and Ueno were comparable in what they achieve, but rather in what they (seem to) strive for.
I think the key aspect here is that people all perceive quality to mean different things and are therefore measuring against different criteria. For me, actually, the overall number of different species I can see in one place isn’t that great a priority. It’s always novel to see something new that I’ve never seen before of course, but I would actually rather see more of my old favourites that repeatedly bring me enjoyment. I also very much enjoy seeing really well done, innovative and enriching enclosures which enable me to see animals at their best, so that’s also generally quite important to me. I think I’m just not so fussed about quantity.
